For Zöe: the story of Flynn and Gwaine
by Sockitysocks
Summary: This gem of weirdness came to pass at three in the morning when myself and a friend were discussing a certain resemblance between the beauty of Gwaine and Flynn Rider... Bargains were made, skittles exchanged, and I ended up promising her the fanfic for Christmas. Now this may be a little late... But I prefer to see it as efficiently early. Anyway... Zöe, I hope you enjoy!


..."Eugene," I say quietly looking at the small figure next to me.

"What?" Rapunzel asks, raising her tear streaked face to look at me through the darkness.

"My real names Eugene Fitzhurbet." I sigh gently. "Someone may as well know."

The water laps gently against my shoulders, it would probably be comforting if it wasn't freezing cold, and dark, and about to drown me. At least they say drowning is an easy way to go. I stare into the depth of the rising water and realise that where the floor had just been was a dim light. It's almost pretty.

"I have magic hair that glows when I sing," her voice rings out making me start out of my thoughts.

Did she just say…"What?"

"I have magic hair that glows when I sing!" Her voice rises to almost a squeak.

I'm fairly sure I can see ripples of new water pouring through the golden light, I think briefly for a moment that something really wants us dead but fast singing interrupts my depressing ideas.

"Flower gleam and glow, let your magic shine," she takes in a deep breath as the water rises above our heads.

I do the same but before I can figure out what's happening a bright light blinds me. Her hair. Her hair is actually glowing! I let out a gasp and immediately regret it as the air leaves my lungs. I suddenly realise that the light is spiralling downwards and I'm swimming towards it. I'm fairly sure we're swimming through the floor that we were standing on minutes before but I push the thought from my mind and keep going.

Rocks begin to emerge from the dark waters, loose ones. I shove at them with my hands, ignoring the pain from my palm that increases with every movement. I feel them give way; just maybe we're going to survive… whatever this is.

She grasps the handle of that stupid frying pan and drives it into the rock, levering them apart. Almost instantly they give way, – I'd definitely been the one to loosen them – but before I can figure out how to say that underwater I find myself falling, and most importantly, breathing. Even if only for a second before I'm plunged back into cold water. I finally break through the surface and gasp, taking a deep breath of the sweet air, oh how I love air.

I drag myself to something that looks like land and haul myself out of the small river I now realise I'd ended up in. To my relief see Blondie doing the same. All I can see is her hair, her glowing hair.

"We're alive," she smiles climbing nimbly out of the water. "We did it."

"Her hair glows!" I splutter. I'm not sure who I'm talking to, but I feel like the words need to be said. "Her hair actually glows." I lean my head on my hands. "I didn't see that coming, it actually glows."

"Eugene!"

I realise she's been calling my name.

"What?!" I don't think my voice has ever sounded so strained in my life.

"It doesn't just glow," she smiles wringing out a gallon of water from her magic hair. Her little frog thing is looking at me with a smug expression. That shouldn't be possible! He's a frog!

"Why is he smiling at me?" I ask, well aware that I'm whining like a five year old.

…

About half an hour later, I find myself sat on a log next to a warm fire. I'm vaguely surprised at how quickly I've dried off, I bet it had something to do with her hair.

She sits down next to me and takes me hand carefully, I open my mouth to ask her what she's doing but I stop as she starts to wrap the end of her hair around the cut. I can feel my heart racing at the touch of her fingers.

"You're being strangely cryptic as you wrap your magic hair around my injured hair," I say trying to diffuse the tension.

"Just promise not to freak out."

I raise an eyebrow, now I'm worrying about what's going to happen. I look at her as she begins to sing the same song she sang in the cave. I frown slightly as my brain trips over the alliterated words… same song see… shame shong… I give up.

"Flower gleam and glow, let your power shine." The words are much slower, much calmer this time. "Make the clock reverse, bring back what once was mine, what once was mine."

I watch, stunned, as the glow reappears in her hair, travelling slowly down the stands of hair until it reaches what's wrapped around my hand. I can't help the sharp inhale as I feel a tingling around the wound, spreading up my arm. For a moment it seems that my skin glows, then the glow fades and she gently slides the hair away from the cut. Only it isn't a cut anymore.

I raise my hand in front of my face, twisting it round as If I'm almost expecting the gash to have appeared on the other side. There's no cut. Nowhere. I can feel my chest constricting.

"Please don't freak out!" She gasps raising her hands.

I force my mouth shut realising that it's wide open. I put my hand under my chin to try and keep it shut. "I'm not freaking out. Are you freaking out? I'm just very interested in your hair and the magic qualities it possesses." I speak far too quickly, the words all running into each other. Smooth. "How long has it been doing that exactly?" I try to amend myself. It doesn't work.

"Forever, I guess," she replies as if it's something she's never thought about before, she almost sounds sheepish.

The conversation turns but I'm barely paying attention, there's a warm fuzzy feeling spreading through me, pulsating through where the cut had been. I feel different somehow, like my body is... Not repairing, but that's exactly what it is; repairing.

…*…

Darkness engulfs me as I scramble into the dim room, whatever relief I'd been feeling instantly fades. Something isn't right. I hear a muffled cry, no, something's wrong. Then I see her, gagged and bound.

"Rapunzel?" I'm not sure what I'm expecting her to do, clearly a full-fledged explanation is out of the question… the cloth in her mouth makes that clear. I can see she's trying to say something, but what? I find out too late as I feel the explosion of pain where the blade pierces my skin. My knees buckle but I don't feel my legs hitting the floor; there's nothing else I can concentrate on but the warm liquid seeping from my side. My hands are already wet with the blood, I'm losing too much, there's nothing I can do.

I can hear her shouting something, but there's nothing she can do. Unless, no. She wouldn't. She is. She's giving herself to that witch in return for saving me, I can't let that happen.

Cold metal clamps around my wrist as the shackles are tightened. 'In case you get any ideas about following us,' her scratchy voice leers at me. As if I could follow her, I'm bleeding to death on a floor.

I try to say something, but all I can manage is a wrenching cough that brings nothing but pain.

Coldness is suddenly replaced by the warmth of Rapunzel, but I know I can't let her sacrifice herself for me. She deserves to live, she deserves to live a life that is worthy of the person she is. She won't be kept a prisoner by some ancient crone if I have anything to do with it.

Besides, I'm handcuffed to a tower, she'd save me today and I'd starve tomorrow… I don't think she's quite thought this all the way through. I know I'm saying something but I'm not entirely sure what, I'm thinking about what I'm about to do. She'd probably kill me for it if I lived to see the result.

Gripping a shard of the broken mirror in my hand, I lift my torso towards her, and with a last exert of energy I slice it through her hair.

I vaguely hear the screams of that witch, but the world is fuzzy. It's a bit like I'm being given a hug by a really fluffy cloud.

Rapunzel's singing again, I love that song. So full of hope, she'll be fine on her own.

I let my eyes roll back and the world fades completely.  
But it doesn't.

Something's there...  
pulling me back,  
keeping me there...

Something in my chest feels hot, like a burn. In an instant it spreads through my entire body, burning, healing. It's relentless. There's a bright light, I'm not sure where it's coming from; it seems to be coming from inside _me_. As if the fire in my chest is leaking to the outside. My back arches with the pain, but almost as quickly as it began, it stops. I lie still for a moment, wondering what's happened. Then I cautiously open my eyes.

She's there, of course she's there. I cough lightly as the air hits my lungs again, 'did I ever tell you I have a thing for brunettes?' I joke, if I've just being resurrected I'm entering the world with a sense of humour. She throws her arms around me and I almost expect it to hurt, but it doesn't. I move my arms to hold her and only then do I realise that the shackles aren't on my wrists anymore, I'm alive and I'm not chained to a post. That's a pretty good – if surprising – end to the day if you ask me.

…*…*…

I don't know how long it is exactly from that night, but I can still remember it as if it was yesterday. I walk through the forest I used to spend so much time in, it's foreign to me now. The path ways I used to live with have changed and the trees all look the same. I do miss it, I miss the thrill of the chase, the rush of the escape…that was why I used to steal; not to survive, well partly in some cases, but it had always been about feeling alive. The blood pumping through your veins, the sound of your feet on the earth, the excitement of knowing that you'll win, because you always do. I do miss it.

I walk until I'm not sure how to get back, I never would have been able to get lost in this wood, and now I sit on a tree stump staring at the unfamiliar trees not knowing which way I should go. I sigh and close my eyes leaning against the trunk while I decide if I can be bothered to anything. Something flickering against my eyelids makes me look up. A giant, glittering... thing. I don't know what else to call it. It's just a thing. No one ever questions things; they just are. I stand up and walk towards it, it seems to be emitting warmth, the air pulsating with the movement of the… thing.. I pick up a small stone and throw it towards the thing, it passes into the light and disappears. It doesn't reappear on the other side. Cautiously I take another step forward, and another, and then all of a sudden I'm standing somewhere else… in another wood, and the light is behind me. The stone I threw is at my feet. I pick it up and turn it over in my hand, I don't exactly know what's happening, but if I'm being honest I don't particularly care either. I'm still alive, and that's been enough to keep me happy so far.  
I hear a yell and there's a sharp pain in my chest. The shaft of an arrow is sticking between my ribs. I don't miss the irony in my last thought. Then it dawns on me that I'm still standing. How am I not dead? I should be dead. I feel a familiar burning in my chest, and as I see my attackers running towards me the power explodes from me in that orange light that filled that tower room all that time ago. I don't know exactly what happens as the light covers me, but it hurts so much more this time. It's as if my face is being torn from me.

The pain fades with the light and I see the bodies of the bandits lying on the ground. I take a step forward but my clothes suddenly feel really uncomfortable, like they don't fit me anymore. I rub my hand across my face, but it feels different. My hair is longer, and my chin is covered in a layer of stubble that hadn't been there before. I through a passing thought to wonder if it's possible that I've been unconscious for a really long time. Deciding that it wasn't, I search in the pockets of the men until I find a mirror that assumedly they'd stolen from a lady. (Either that or wherever this is the bandits have more questionable hobbies than where I was before.) I still look like me, but a different version of me. It's as if an artist drew a picture of me from a description alone… everything was there: the beautiful locks, the strong nose, good bone structure, and of course that handsome smile… but it wasn't me.

It's sometime later that I'm walking aimlessly through the forest the flickery light had gone by the time I'd changed into more comfortable clothes so I was left with even less idea as to what had just happened. Any uncertainty leaves me instantly as a tavern comes into sight. I may have walked through a ball of wavey light, and I may have been given a new face, but a tavern will always be a tavern.. I know them like the back of my hand, at least my old hands… not that I can really remember what my hands used to be like… that's a weird saying isn't it?

I push the tavern door open taking in a deep breath of the colour brown, but there's something not quite right in the atmosphere. There's two men sat at one of the tables, they seem perfectly at ease here, but I can tell that they don't belong in a place like this. For one their clothes are far too clean, it's unnatural. Not to mention the blond one holding himself as if he thinks he's the bloody king!

Whatever they're doing here they're clearly not posing a threat to me so I ignore them, I get talking to one of the men at another table attempting to make some sort of sense about where I am; It's definitely not where I was before. No one seems to have heard of any lost princesses, and apparently they have a young king here. Arthur Pendragon they say his name is.  
Becoming aware of an argument striking up I switch my attention back to the two men, the dark haired and the blond. Something lights up in my eyes, it's been far too long since I got into a good tavern brawl without some weird thugs breaking out into song for no apparent reason. .  
I saunter over to the dark haired boy.

This is the chance I've been waiting for; I can make a new life for myself, get a new name, a new beginning.

'I'm Gwaine,' I say cheerily. 'What do they call you?'

I take a sip out of the pitcher in my hands.

'I'm Merlin,' he replies with a gleam in his eyes...


End file.
